I love your work. Unique, I know. I’m an artist too. Paint is also my preferred medium, although I don’t throw it about the canvas. I workout of the Copper Works Collective in Brooklyn. You should come see us. Maybe I could teach you a technique other than splattering.
With love,
Charlotte G. Faure
I fell asleep that night with thoughts of my piss-poor date, not of the random email I’d sent off to a mysterious celebrity on my walk home. So, imagine my surprise the next morning when I woke up with mussed hair, a fuzzy brain and an email notification:
Dear Miss Faure,
I’m flattered by your kind words. I do, in fact, know plenty of other techniques... However, I’d surely love to learn what you have to teach. My brush is at your command.
Besides, I’ve been meaning to visit Brooklyn. I will let you know if I head to Copper Works. What’s your address? I prefer pen to paper.
Your willing student,
Devo
I read the email twice over with bleary eyes and a deepening crease between my brows.Is this really him?I looked back over what I’d sent late the night before and cringed.Oof. I’d been sassy. I hadsassedan artist I admire! In our very first interaction, too.Assuming it really was him, said a tiny voice in my head.
Larisa had said that this was the email address he’d used to contact her studio before he’d come to visit… and I consider her trustworthy.
Who knows who the person on the other end of thekeyboard thought I was, but I wasn’t about to let this potential luck of a response slip through my fingers. I replied with my address—a twenty-unit apartment building in Park Slope—and the following note:
In case you’re a criminal or an impersonator, I will have you know that you can reach me via “pen to paper” at the above address, but it isheavily guardedand may or may not be where I live. I have a doorman, and a protective dog or two. So… don’t do anything crazy.
Whoosh. Sent.
Oh my god.
Subject: Forgot my unit #!
#3D. As in, the third dimension.
And I mean it about the dogs!
I was sober and sending even zanier messages than the night before. Most of what I’d said was neither true nor sensical, but I wanted a letter! And at the same time, I felt vulnerable. Was I an idiot to send my address to a stranger? Maybe. My mom would kill me if she knew.
No immediate response.
An hour or two later. Still no response.
The next day? Nothing.
Whoever was on the other side of those emails, I’d definitely scared them off. I thought over my follow-up send, “As in, the third dimension.”Ugh.I shook my head and looked up at the ceiling.
It had been a shot in the dark anyway.
Coming back from my studio collective that Monday, I’d found a letter waiting in my mailbox. It was inside in a rectangular white envelope addressed to “Miss Charlotte Faure.” I flipped it over to the back and, much to my amusement, noticed a soft violet paint splatter across the flap. To a different recipient, this might have looked like a mistake. I, on the other hand, had a feeling it was a calling card. My heart thundered in my chest, beating with anticipation. I looked both ways in the mail room vestibule as if someone was going to spot me with contraband.
When I finally got up to our apartment on the fifth floor, I ripped open the envelope to find a thick piece of white paper, nicely folded. Once laid out, I scanned the few lines of black angular script, ending on the flourishing signature at the bottom:DEVO
It was him.Right??Oh my gosh. My hands were building up nervous sweat as I went back to fully read the note.
Miss Faure,
I hope this letter finds you and your 1-2 protective dogs and kindly doorman all well. To try to help prove myself, I’ll play a round of two truths and a lie with you:
